Tuftelin is an acidic
phosphorylated
In biochemistry, phosphorylation is described as the "transfer of a phosphate group" from a donor to an acceptor. A common phosphorylating agent (phosphate donor) is ATP and a common family of acceptor are alcohols:
:
This equation can be writt ...
glycoprotein
Glycoproteins are proteins which contain oligosaccharide (sugar) chains covalently attached to amino acid side-chains. The carbohydrate is attached to the protein in a cotranslational or posttranslational modification. This process is known a ...
found in
tooth enamel
Tooth enamel is one of the four major Tissue (biology), tissues that make up the tooth in humans and many animals, including some species of fish. It makes up the normally visible part of the tooth, covering the Crown (tooth), crown. The other ...
. In humans, the tuftelin protein is encoded by the ''TUFT1'' gene.
It is an acidic protein that is thought to play a role in dental enamel mineralization and is implicated in caries susceptibility. It is also thought to be involved with adaptation to hypoxia, mesenchymal stem cell function, and neurotrophin nerve growth factor mediated neuronal differentiation.
Classification
There are two kinds of enamel proteins:
amelogenins and nonamelogenins. Tuftelin falls under nonamelogenins.
Function
This protein is formed for a short time during
amelogenesis. The function of tuftelins is under contention, but it is proposed that it acts to start the mineralization process of enamel during
tooth development
A tooth (: teeth) is a hard, calcified structure found in the jaws (or mouths) of many vertebrates and used to break down food. Some animals, particularly carnivores and omnivores, also use teeth to help with capturing or wounding prey, teari ...
.
Other significant proteins in enamel are
amelogenin
Amelogenins are a group of protein isoforms produced by alternative splicing or proteolysis from the '' AMELX'' gene, on the X chromosome, and also the '' AMELY'' gene in males, on the Y chromosome. They are involved in amelogenesis, the develo ...
s,
enamelin
Enamelin is an enamel matrix protein (EMPs), that in humans is encoded by the ''ENAM'' gene
In biology, the word gene has two meanings. The Mendelian gene is a basic unit of heredity. The molecular gene is a sequence of nucleotides in DNA ...
s, and
ameloblastins.
Research
The human encoding
gene
In biology, the word gene has two meanings. The Mendelian gene is a basic unit of heredity. The molecular gene is a sequence of nucleotides in DNA that is transcribed to produce a functional RNA. There are two types of molecular genes: protei ...
for tuftelin (TUFT1) was cloned by Profs. Danny Deutsch and Aharon Palmon from the
Hebrew University
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; ) is an Israeli public research university based in Jerusalem. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Chaim Weizmann in July 1918, the public university officially opened on 1 April 1925. It is the second-ol ...
-
Hadassah School of Dental Medicine in
Jerusalem
Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...
.
Interactions
Tuftelin has been shown to
interact with
TFIP11.
References
Further reading
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Teeth